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An Overview of the Javascript GameDev Ecosystem

Arnaud Morisset on August 26, 2019

Introduction Days ago, a friend of mine (a developer too) asked me if I can show him how we can create a game with Javascript, which fra...

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Alex González • Aug 27 '19

This is a great post, thank you Arnaud!

I knew about some frameworks like Pixi or Phaser, but had not heard of Excalibur. Looks promising!

Hopefully this can get me out the analysis paralysis and finally start spinning up a game.

Thanks again!

Arnaud Morisset • Aug 27 '19

You're welcome.

the analysis paralysis and finally start spinning up a game

I know that too well. 😅

I will try to complete my first game for the JS13K Game Jam.

Alex González • Aug 27 '19

Nice, can't wait to read your post about the process! Best of luck. 😉

Chris Achard • Aug 26 '19

This is a great list - thanks! I was just trying to figure out how to make a simple game with JS for fun, so this is great.

It looks like Phaser even has a library for React Native called ExpoPhaser (github.com/expo/expo-phaser) - so that's exciting too!

Arnaud Morisset • Aug 27 '19

Thanks for the comment.

I didn't know ExpoPhaser! Thanks for the link. 😉

Ben Halpern • Aug 26 '19

What a fabulous first post

Arnaud Morisset • Aug 26 '19

Thanks! 🙇

Lee Warrick • Aug 26 '19

Excited to see where Excalibur goes.

You should check out kontra.js!

It's a simple version of phaser made for the js13k game jam.

Nazim Boudeffa • Aug 27 '19 • Edited

Thank you for sharing this link I was working on a js13k version of phaserjs and wondering to see if there any attempts to make something in this sense like kontrajs for instance

Lee Warrick • Aug 27 '19

no problem! If you give kontra a try let me know!

Arnaud Morisset • Aug 26 '19

I recently tried Kontra.js (with webmaker.app) and it's really nice.

I will try to make a game for js13k with it. 😉

Lee Warrick • Aug 26 '19

Great! I expect a post on the experience, or maybe a tutorial soon!

Nana Axel • Aug 26 '19 • Edited

Great post! I just want to add PlayCanvas in your list of tools as a powerfull game engine for WebGL and the JS world!

Arnaud Morisset • Aug 26 '19

Thanks!

PlayCanvas is impressive, do it have an offline mode?

Nana Axel • Aug 26 '19

No... I'm sad too... But the core engine is open source at GitHub so I think anyone can use it offline without the power of the visual editor.

Gabriel Romay Machado • May 26 '21

I feel the same about sticking with a language and ecosystem you already know. Javascript applications are so broad but people who doesn't really use it keep maintaining that old discourse about how JS is flawed and it should only exist on the front-end. So, thanks for this article :)